THE QUEEN v. CHAN KWONG-YIM

BETWEEN

THE QUEEN

and

CHAN KWONG-YIM

------

______________

J U D G M E N T

_____________

Sir Alan Huggins, V.-P.:

1. This is an appeal against conviction. The Appellant was convicted of riot and unlawful assembly. The evidence against him' was principally that of an  inspector of police. There was a squatter clearance operation in progress.  A number of persons resisted the demolition workers.  Trouble had been threatened and the police were there in force. When the demolition workers moved in, the riot began. That there was a riot is beyond any possible question. Violence of an extreme nature was used. Rioters threw stones,   used sticks and even used a flame thrower.

2. The issue in relation to this Applicant was whether he was taking part in the riot. His story was that he had gone to the scene to meet a friend. He said that he was viciously attacked by the police for no reason and that he was knocked unconscious. He told the District Judge and he told us this morning that he was carried unconscious to a police vehicle. That last statement was clearly untrue: he admits that a photograph was taken at the scene showing him walking to the police vehicle. It is, perhaps, not altogether surprising in the light of that untruth that the judge did not believe the Applicant's evidence but the Applicant was not to be convicted because he told lies: he could only be convicted if there was evidence to show that he had in fact taken part in the riot. There was such evidence. It was mainly that of a police inspector who said that this Applicant was on a ledge on the first floor of the premises and that at one point he was lying down and struck the officer on the leg. There was other evidence that this Applicant threw a stone at the police which hit a shield held by a police constable. That was said by an officer other than the inspector and apparently occurred after the incident in which the inspector was involved. (The inspector said that he saw the Applicant arrested in connection with another incident.)

3. The real difficulty in the case was to know whether or not this Applicant had been correctly identified. It is in truth significant that, although a great many photographs were taken at the scene, there is no photograph of this Applicant other than the one to which I have already referred. Nevertheless at least two police officers - I think it was three - clearly identified this Applicant. Rather naturally they were cross-examined as to the identification. In particular the inspector admitted in cross-examination that he could not, at the time of the trial, identify the Applicant, but he had very shortly after the incident identified the Applicant at a police station and had recorded his name. In the face of that evidence the learned judge was fully entitled to believe that the Applicant was taking part in the riot and it is quite impossible for this court to say that he was wrong. The Applicant insists that he had no cause to be involved in this attack on the police. He did not live in the area and was not the owner of one of the huts which was to be demolished. That was a matter which the judge took into consideration and it was not conclusive against the Appellant's being involved in the riot. Experience shows that all too often persons who are not directly involved choose to involve themselves. The judge was obviously satisfied that. that is what happened in this case and we do not feel able to say that he was wrong so to believe. The Applicant chose to tell at least one lie: he only has himself to blame if the case went against him.

4. The application must be dismissed.

10th November 1983